As we leave September behind us and October tempts us to think there is some mild weather ahead, we should give careful thought to whether each colony has sufficient food stored away to see the bees through the winter. Ideally when the bees go into their winter cluster they should be surrounded by comb full of honey or syrup. It is not impossible to feed bees during the cold periods but expecting them to leave the cluster to visit a feeder is not realistic. The bees may completely ignore the fact that you have provided them with a reservoir of food. Indeed, bees often ignore the fact that there are frames of capped honey on the opposite side of the brood box. There is nothing more disheartening to find that the colony has died of starvation and yet there was ample food in the hive for them.
To feed or not to feed?
If you have taken off most of the honey crop from the hive then the answer is that you must feed them. They are unlikely to be able to store enough winter stores collected from Ivy, Himalayan Balsam of other autumn flowing plants. The choice is to use a manufactured liquid feed or a homemade diluted sugar feed.
Liquid feed can be made at home using white granulated sugar (see Wally Shaw’s recipe below) or by buying a commercially prepared syrup. My own preference is a commercial feed but this can be expensive. The two leading products are Ambrosia and Invertbee which comes in 12.5 or 14kg plastic jerry cans. They are easy to lift and carry over short distances but if your colonies are any distance over rough ground then decanting the syrup into smaller containers makes sense.
Q. How much feed should I give each colony? A. It is difficult to advise but my rule of thumb is buy one jerry can for each colony (then you should have some left over for the spring if it’s needed). Wally Shaw says that a colony needs about 2.3kg of stores/feed a week – so 35kg to take them up to Christmas. The more honey you already have on the colony the less you will need to supplement with syrup.
Q. When should I feed my bees? A. Now! If the weather is still warm enough to inspect your hives, you can see how many stores are in the brood and in any supers that you are leaving on the hive overwinter. Heft the hive – that is, lift up the hive from one side of the floor and get used to its weight. If the hive feels like it is glued to the ground then the bees have stored enough for the winter. You will be lucky to find yourself in this position. More likely it will feel quite light. Then you must feed them
Q. How do I feed my bees? A. There is a choice of feeders- an inverted bucket or a feeder with a lid. I prefer the latter – called a rapid feeder- mainly because you can see how much liquid feed the bees are taking down into the hive. Both of these feeders are placed on a crown board over its central hole. You need to put an empty super around the feeder and then the roof. You will need to check how quickly the feed is being used and top it up frequently.
A word of warning
Two things to remember. 1. Feeding can lead to robbing if you have more than one hive in your apiary. 2. If you are leaving a super of stores above the brood you MUST remove the Queen Excluder. [It’s good practice to remove it in the autumn to give it a good clean before replacing it in the Spring.
Online advice: Feeding Bees by Wally Shaw
Next time: DOC talks about varroa and winter bees.